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By Avi Creditor

The San Jose Earthquakes forward tied the MLS mark with 27 goals this season, easing by Thierry Henry and Graham Zusi to win the league's top individual award.

The latest chapter of San Jose Earthquakes forward Chris Wondolowski's storybook run in Major League Soccer is complete.

At the rate Wondolowski scored goals this past season, he was the heavy favorite to win the league's Most Valuable Player award, and he did that in a landslide vote, capturing the league's top individual honor on Thursday.

Wondolowski's 27-goal season tied Roy Lassiter's single-season MLS mark set in the inaugural 1996 campaign and helped propel the Earthquakes to the Supporters' Shield. Wondolowski, an afterthought pick in the 2005 MLS Supplemental Draft who was traded from the Houston Dynamo to San Jose in 2009, has led MLS in scoring for the last thee years (he tied with Dwayne De Rosario last season and missed out on the Golden Boot due to the assists tiebreaker), amassing 61 goals in that time after totaling seven goals in the previous five seasons.

The California native beat out New York Red Bulls forward Thierry Henry, Sporting Kansas City midfielder Graham Zusi and Houston midfielder Brad Davis to win the honor, becoming the first Earthquake to do so. The 29-year-old Wondolowski received 91.23 percent of the club vote, 96.97 percent of the media vote and 70.83 percent of the player vote to coast to the award.

Wondolowski becomes the fifth United States-born player to win the MLS MVP award, joining Landon Donovan, Taylor Twellman, Jason Kreis and Tony Meola. Another American to win the award was the Yugoslavia-born Preki, who did so in 1997 and 2003.

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